Alan2005

I honestly never saw any and I knew a fair few septics when I lived in asia. Mind you they weren't the sort of people that stuck badges on their luggage - that really is a back-packer thing.

Almost Canadian

OK. I accept that some Americans will wear Maple Leafs on their attire. I believe that this has more to do with not wanting to be thought of as American (accent etc.) as opposed to wanting to be indentified as Canadian. I suspect that the percentage of Americans doing so is relatively small, probably as many as Brits that travel with American flags on their attire. I suspect that, accent issues aside, such people would be just as likely to want to be able to sew a Union Jack, Aussie flag etc.

Alan2005

It's all bollocks anyway. This talk of maple leaves is just a back handed way of saying that US foreign policy sucks more than the Canadian equivalent. Well, there's a fcking surprise.

It doesn't tell us about day-to-day differences between here and there. Things like healthcare, social welfare, etc.

Weebie

99% of the people on this forum wouldn't qualify for a visa to the states.

Canadians have no personality or no Identity as a country. There insular, boring, very protective and in my opinion very deceptive. Getting into their net of friends is much harder in Canada then lets say Australia, Britain and America.

If your educated America is better. If your working class then Canada is a better option. The Health Care issue is huge though but even if I lived in Canada I'm sure I would purchase health insurance just like I would for the states and I currently do for America.

London Mike

I think too much is made of the US wanting to disguise themselves through embarrassment. That's an image that's been created by others, not necessarily Americans, post 9/11. If anything, Americans became more proud of their nationality after this event. To be honest, the opposite is the case in my opinion - perhaps too much pride in all things American when travelling overseas (as I saw in the Vatican when someone asked in the gift shop if they could purchase in US$, and seemed aghast that they couldn't). Perhaps I'm propogating another stereoptype there though.

Canada and the US are very similar in lots and lots of ways, but there are some distinctive cultural differences too - covered in this thread already. In my field, I am struck by how 'international' in outlook a lot of Canadian teaching and research is at HE level compared to the US; that there's more of a distributive culture in terms of research funding at HE level in Canada compared with the US (which doles out higher grants to fewer people); how much more affordable it is to attend university in Canada than in the US, with some really high quality universities too; and how much (on the whole) better paid professors are in Canada compared with the US. I think this is much to do with the lack of a State university system here in Canada which just processes 1000s upon 1000s of students in the US - many of whom just shouldn't be at university at all.

fledermaus

Actually it's nonsense to make a blanket comparison of the two. I've often been told, and quite rightly so, that you can't extrapolate what happens in Ontario, or even my part of Ontario, to what happens in the rest of the province and country so I don't see how you can compare the entire USA to Canada.

I've just spent a week in some offices in Durham North Carolina and it felt remarkably similar to some offices I used to work in London- England. The main differences were in the coffee and the food otherwise, nah.

One of the Americans remarked on how Canada now had a Prime Minister that was more right wing than their President.

London Mike

Wind-up merchant.

ExKiwilass

Ignore him, he likes to troll on the Oz forum too.

Oink

What a load of bollocks, I have an American and a British passport and find it a much richer experience living in Canada than the US. To qualify, Vancouver specifically, I wouldn't be caught dead in the rest of the place.

cxx

Have to disagree - 10 years after leaving the US we are still close friends with our old neighbours, have been to their family weddings, etc. whilst in here NB we try to speak to people in the street etc. and they just ignore us (and each other, so we don't think it's personal!!) - it's the first place we've lived where we haven't got to know our neighbours.

JamesM

Except Michael Moore............

Weebie

Much harder to get into the US than Canada. That is indisputable.

Novocastrian

I've done both. Neither was difficult.

Weebie

So have I and but that's irrelevant.

I'm not saying that people wouldn't choose Canada over America but I am saying that a lot of people on this forum wouldn't get in to the states.

Novocastrian

A lot of people on this forum won't get into Canada either. Although I'm not sure why that's relevant to the topic.